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February 14, 2008

Injections, physicians and distractions

As detailed in many long-ago posts (examples here and here), for nearly two years — ever since lower federal courts started regularly blocking state executions because of Eighth Amendment concerns — I have been calling for Congress to hold hearings in which doctors and lawyers could provide evidence on the practicalities of injection protocols. Notably, yesterday brought a high-profile House hearing with doctors and lawyers providing evidence of injection protocols, but of course the focus was injections given to Mr. and Mrs. Clemens. I suppose this shows yet again that politicians and the public care a lot more about sports than the death penalty, but it hardly helps fix our broken system of capital punishment.

Fortunately, anyone eager to hear from doctors and lawyers about execution protocols can get some satisfaction from SSRN through this new piece, titled "Physician and Execution — Highlights from a Discussion of Lethal Injection." Here is the abstract:

This article constitutes excerpts of a videotaped discussion (www.nejm.org) hosted by the New England Journal of Medicine on January 14, 2008, concerning a range of topics on lethal injection prompted by the United States Supreme Court's January 7 oral arguments in Baze v. Rees. Dr. Atul Gawande moderated the roundtable that included two anesthesiologists — Dr. Robert Truog and Dr. David Waisel — as well as law professor Deborah Denno. The discussion focused on the drugs used in lethal injection executions, whether physicians should participate, potential alternatives, and some of the legal parameters of Baze.